Beneath the Planet of the Apes

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Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Directed by	Ted Post
Produced by	Arthur P. Jacobs
Written by	Pierre Boulle (characters) Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams (story) Paul Dehn (screenplay)
Starring	James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Charlton Heston
Music by	Leonard Rosenman
Cinematography	Milton R. Krasner
Distributed by	Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
Release date(s)	May 26, 1970 (U.S. release)
Running time	95 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a 1970 motion picture, the first sequel to the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes. It stars Charlton Heston in a very small supporting role, James Franciscus, and Kim Hunter.

[edit] Taglines

• The bizarre world you met in 'Planet of the Apes' was only the beginning... What lies beneath may be the end!

• An army of civilized apes...A fortress of radiation-crazed super humans...Earth's final battle is about to begin—Beneath the atomic rubble of what was once the city of New York!

[edit] Plot summary

The film picks up exactly where the previous one left off, with the discussion between Dr. Zaius and Taylor about mankind and the quotation from the apes' sacred scrolls:

The opening credits are shown with Taylor and Nova riding through the desert of the "Forbidden Zone".

Brent.

The scene switches to the desolation of the Forbidden Zone, where a spacecraft lies, engines and landing gear destroyed by fire as a result of an apparent crash landing. One of the ship's two survivors, an astronaut named Brent, emerges from the hatch.

"I took an Earth-time reading just before re-entry," he tells his badly wounded Skipper. "Three-Niner-Five-Five... A.D." The stunned Skipper grieves in the realization that everyone he ever knew -- including his wife and daughters -- are dead, before dying from his injuries, leaving Brent all alone. After he finishes burying Skipper, Brent hears the sound of an approaching horse. He takes cover in the wreckage of his ship, gripping the shovel he used to bury Skipper as a weapon. Over the rise of a nearby dune, a woman on horseback appears.

Brent tries to speak to the woman, but quickly comes to the realization that she is apparently mute. She is also clearly frightened, so Brent drops the shovel to show her he means no harm. He then notices that she is wearing a metal I.D. tag and reads it believing it would show her name; instead, he discovers that it belongs to Taylor, the man he was sent to find. Realizing that he may still be alive, Brent mounts the horse behind her saying “Take me to Taylor.”

Brent and the woman soon ride out of the desert into the greener, cultivated area outside of Ape City. They dismount and crawl through bushes until they are overlooking a crowded amphitheater, and hear the cheering of a crowd. When he sees the crowd, Brent is horrified: “It’s a city of apes!”

Addressing the crowd is General Ursus (James Gregory), leader of the Ape Army: “I’ll tell you one thing that every good soldier knows. The only thing that counts in the end is power! Naked, merciless force!”; The gorillas cheer as their leader calls for the total extermination of all humans. The orangutans and chimpanzees in the crowd are silent and clearly do not agree.

Ursus continues, justifying his position with their religion, pointing to the statue at the top of the amphitheater: “Our great Lawgiver tells us that never will the human have the Apes’ divine faculty for being able to distinguish between Evil and Good. The only good human is a dead human!”; Ursus wants the Apes to invade the Forbidden Zone, conquer it, and use it as a potential food source -- he wins the support of the Apes for his invasion plans. Brent wants to leave immediately, but he is wounded by a patrolling gorilla trooper.

Later, while taking a steam bath, Dr. Zaius discusses the impending invasion with General Ursus. Zaius has misgivings about the undertaking of seeking a fight with a totally unknown and potentially dangerous enemy. But Ursus is convinced that the threat of an impending famine makes his decision necessary -- if something lives in the Forbidden Zone, then they must eat: “We invade or we starve. It’s as simple as that.”

Cornelius and Zira return home to find two humans waiting for them. At the sight of the woman, Zira proclaims “Nova!”, thus Brent learns her name. Seeing him, she asks uncertainly “Taylor?” and is shocked when the man answers “No, my name is Brent.” Brent tells them he is searching for Taylor and asks for their help. Cornelius shows him a map of the area as Zira treats Brent’s gunshot wound: “Among other things, I happen to be a trained Vet,” she comments.

They are interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Zaius. Brent and Nova hide as the Minister of Science enters. Zaius had protected them from the charges of heresy and treason months before, but now scolds Zira for her behavior during the meeting (she remained seated when everyone else stood in applause). He informs them that he will be joining Ursus on the invasion of the Forbidden Zone. While he is away, he asks for reassurances that they will stay out of trouble.

Brent and Nova quickly leave Ape City, but are immediately spotted by a gorilla patrol and are captured. They are loaded into a wagon cage and taken back, passing squads of gorilla soldiers going through military exercises using humans for targets. When they arrive at the compound, they are spotted by Zira. Pretending scientific interest, she attempts to secure them in the zoological area, but is stopped by Ursus: “You can’t have them! They’re marked for target practice,” he tells her. As they are loaded back into the wagon, Zira pretends to lock the door but in reality unlocks it, enabling Brent and Nova to escape from their captors.

Pursued by the gorillas, they hide in an unnatural looking cave, where the walls are covered in tiles and the middle is supported by a row of steel I-beams. Seeing the words “Queensboro Plaza” written on the tiles, Brent recognizes that the cavern is a subway station; he is not on a strange and unexplored planet orbiting some distant star, but back on Earth two millennia after his mission into space was launched. Overwrought, he wonders aloud what could have happened to destroy the world he knew.

With the gorillas still outside searching for them, Brent and Nova go deeper into the ruined subway tunnels. Hearing a strange, mechanical, humming sound, they follow it through an airshaft into the ruins of Manhattan Island. Separated from Nova, Brent enters the remains of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and finds a person inside, kneeling before the high altar. However, the object of worship fills him with horror - an intact nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile.

The unmasked mutants and their god.

The city rulers interrogate Brent in the ruins of Grand Central Terminal. He replies to telepathic queries, suffering a barrage of thoughts from them when they learn that he escaped from Ape City. When it is apparent that he can not handle their telepathic communication, their leader instructs them to verbal questioning. Brent confirms their worst fears; “The Apes are marching on your city!”

Other than their “Divine Bomb”, the mutants’ only defenses are telepathic illusions. In the Forbidden Zone, the ape army comes upon a horrible sight, their gorilla scouts crucified on inverted crosses, engulfed in flames. Ursus is outraged and then frightened, as a monolithic statue of their Lawgiver appears over them and begins to bleed. Instead of instilling fear, Zaius is incensed at what he sees: "This is a vision and it is a lie!," he declares as he charges into the flames. Unharmed, he goes up to the base of the statue just as it falls. He braces for the crash, but the illusion vanishes. He declares, "The vision was false!" Ursus orders the army to continue their advance.

With the failure of their illusion to dissuade the apes, the mutants have no choice but to prepare to detonate the “Divine Bomb.” The mutants hold a worship service in the cathedral, Brent and Nova are given robes to wear and attend. The congregation sings a corrupted version of the Anglican hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful”, praising “the Bomb Almighty,” and in unison removes masks which had concealed their true appearance. Exposed to centuries of radioactive fallout, the mutants are skinless and horribly scarred; only in the presence of their horrible god do they reveal their “inmost selves.”

Afterward, Brent is separated from Nova and put in a jail cell with Taylor: “We don’t kill our enemies,” the mutant says; “we get our enemies to kill each other.” Under his telepathic control, Taylor and Brent fight against each other. Hearing the sound of the fighting, Nova escapes her guard and runs to the cell. She is confronted by a sight that fills her with horror, her friend and the man she loves trying to kill each other. Overwrought, she cries out “Tay-lor!” The sound of her voice breaks the mutant’s concentration, freeing Brent and Taylor from his control and they kill him.

Outside, the apes have come within sight of the ruins of New York City. Zaius sees a cave opening that leads to the underground community. Ursus commands his troops to dismount and advance into the tunnels and begin killing the mutants on sight. As the killing begins, Taylor and Brent try to break out of their cell. When they succeed, they are stopped by a gorilla trooper that kills Nova before he is subdued.

The end of the world.

Using a battering ram, the apes force their way into St. Patrick’s Cathedral to be confronted be a lone human. As the missile rises into launch position he declares, “This is the instrument of my God!” Taylor and Brent arrive just in time to see the mutant leader gunned down by the gorillas before he can fire the weapon. From the Greek letters "ΑΩ" (Alpha and Omega) on one of the missile’s tailfins, Taylor realizes that this weapon is the "doomsday bomb". If it is launched, it will destroy the entire planet.

Ursus orders his troops to pull down the bomb with ropes. As the bomb falls, it breaks open and begins venting fuel. Ursus goes over to the controls; believing he can stop the venting, he moves to push the detonator switch. Seeing this, Brent pounds on the keys of the cathedral’s pipe organ to distract the gorilla general and begins shooting. Zaius spots Taylor on the other side of the room, and Ursus shoots him.

Seeing this, Brent goes into a rage coming out into the open and starts killing gorillas, beginning with Ursus himself. As this happens, Zaius confronts Taylor. The mortally wounded man pleads with Zaius for help. Zaius contemptuously refuses: "You ask me to help you?! Man is evil, capable of nothing but destruction!" With this remark, Brent's rifle empties and the gorillas kill him in a barrage of gunfire. Taylor dies, and his outstretched hand (extended in a last, futile plea for help) falls on the control switch that triggers the bomb, destroying the Earth itself. The film ends with a narration (spoken by veteran voice actor Paul Frees):

The credits roll in silence against a black screen.

[edit] Trivia

• Roddy McDowall was unable to reprise his role for this sequel (he was directing a movie overseas at the time). Actor David Watson portrays Cornelius through most of the film. Although not credited, the ending sequence of the first movie was used in an edited version at the beginning of "Beneath", making McDowall the only actor to appear in all 5 "Ape" movies. The animated TV series, is the only original Apes project in which McDowall is not a part of.
• Actor Natalie Trundy as well as McDowell are both credited with apearing in 4 of the 5 movies.
• An early idea for the film involved a half human, half ape child. This idea ended up being scrapped, to avoid implications of bestiality and keep the film "Family Friendly". Rare test footage of the Ape/Human child can be seen in the "Behind the Planet of the Apes" documentary hosted by Roddy McDowall.
• Charlton Heston showed little interest in reprising his role from the first movie. He agreed to appear for only a short stint of filming with the provision that his character be killed off at the movie's start, and also that his entire salary would be donated to charity. Instead, the producers chose to have Heston's character, Taylor, disappear at the start of the movie, and then be killed off at its end^[1]. This meant that Heston was given the key moment of the movie's conclusion.
• Charlton Heston claimed that the idea for Taylor to destroy the world was his. He hoped that this would put an end to further sequels.^[2]
• The novelization of the screenplay retained the original ending from the script. Ursus was not killed by Brent. Both he and Zaius are confronted by Taylor. As Taylor tries to reason with Zaius, Zaius condems him and Ursus repeatedly shoots Taylor with his pistol. Brent's rifle empties and the gorillas kill him. Ursus is horrified, as he tells Zaius that he has emptied the pistol's magazine into Taylor; he should be dead, but he still keeps going. Knowing he is dying, Taylor (after Dr. Zaius refuses to help him disarm the missile) decides the only way to stop the violence is by detonating the bomb. This he does, destroying the Earth itself.^[3]
• This movie mentions the "Hasslein Curve", a rift in time that sent both Taylor and Brent's ships back to Earth, far in its future. This is the second reference to Dr. Otto Hasslein, who appears in the next sequel, Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
• The film's themes of a future world where intelligent animals had evolved to supplant man as the dominant form of life on the planet and a society that worshiped a nuclear missile were featured in "Kamandi", a DC Comics comic book series created by acclaimed artist Jack Kirby.

In Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the mutant society is realised with the help of reused sets from Hello Dolly. The above pictures show the sets as they appeared in the two films for comparison

• The sets of the mutant's council chamber and the temple of the bomb were redresses of the 42nd Street–Grand Central (New York City Subway) and hotel lobby sets from the film Hello Dolly!. The council chamber set was redressed again as a pool in the movie Superman. The pool set was later used again in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero.^[4][5]
• Despite the destruction of the Earth, the Planet of the Apes series spawned three more movies. The next film, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, explains that Cornelius, Zira, and a third ape (Dr. Milo) escaped the Earth before its destruction by repairing Taylor's ship from the first film and piloting it through a rift in time that takes them back to 20th century Earth.

• The storyline originally called for the worshiped bomb to destroy the warring apes and humans underground, as Taylor and Nova escaped, and for the survivors to found a new society.
• The role of Brent was originally intended for Burt Reynolds.
• The role of General Ursus was originally offered to Orson Welles, who declined the part.
• The Alpha Omega bomb design was inspired by the 7mm Remington Magnum rifle cartridge.

[edit] Influence in other works

• DJ Cam sampled parts of dialogue from Brent's scene being interrogated by the human mutants in his song "Bronx Theme".

"I'm an astronaut. I was sent here on a rescue mission... to find a fellow astronaut. Taylor. I'm from this planet... from another time, two thousand years ago."
"No. No, I don't know how to get back. We came through a defect in, uh, space and time. That's what must've happened to Skipper... I'm sure he tried to get back. That's why Skipper's dead, and, I'm alone."
"Wait! Wait a minute! Stop it! I can't understand you! You're all screaming at me at the same time!... The pain and suffering!"
"Are we to understand that you were in the City of the Apes?"
"Yes."
"What sights did you see?"
"Certainly we can talk, it's a rather primitive accomplishment. We use it when we must. When we pray. When we sing to our God."
"...Seeing how there an atomic bomb... is God?!"
"You don't understand, Mr. Brent, the bomb is a holy weapon of the peace."

• Mystery Science Theater 3000 often parodied (and paid homage) to the Apes series of films. In the show's 8th season, during the "host segments", the show featured an alternate Earth where (comedically stupid) talking apes ruled over men. To close this particular mini-story arc, Professor Bobo and Pearl Forrester (revealed as the apes' "Lawgiver") escape Earth when Michael J. Nelson accidentally destroys the planet, by inadvertently helping Bobo and friends repair a nuclear bomb that is worshipped by underground mutants (which of course is a direct reference to Beneath the Planet of the Apes).
• The videogame Secret Of Mana hints several times that the apparent fantasy-world setting is actually a post-apocalyptic Earth, and at one point in the game the characters stumble upon an abandoned but still functional subway system.
• In the Futurama episode "I Second That Emotion", the crew finds a society of mutants living in the sewers under New New York City, which actually interconnect with the crumbling ruins of the original New York City (visually much like the ruins of NYC are depicted in Beneath). The crew pass by the decaying structure of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and when the crew looks inside it, they find that the mutants worship an unexploded nuclear missile.

Fry: Wow! You guys worship an unexploded nuclear bomb?!

Mutant: Yeah, but no one's that observant. It's merely a Christmas and Easter thing.

• The Orbital track "Desert Storm" (from the Green Album) features a sample of the mutants' "Blessing of the Bomb Almighty" from this film.
• The song, "Animal In Man," from the album Let's Get Free begins with a sound excerpt from a climactic scene in the movie where Taylor asks Dr. Zaius for help, prompting the angry reply, "You ask me to help you? Man is evil, capable of nothing but destruction!"

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Planet of the Apes Yahoo Group -- The internet's largest community of PLANET OF THE APES fans.
• Planet of the Apes Yahoo Discussion Group -- A meeting place for Beneath the POTA fans.
• Beneath the Planet of the Apes at the Internet Movie Database